Wednesday 17 July 2013 08.54 EDT
First published on Wednesday 17 July 2013 08.54 EDT

The world's oldest knockout cup competition is to return to the BBC after an absence of seven years, as part of a deal for the FA Cup in which it will share the rights with new entrant BT Sport.

The contract, which runs for four years from 2014/15, means that FA Cup ties will be shared between the BBC and BT while ITV retains the rights to England's home matches.

Added together, the FA's income for the FA Cup and England's home matches is believed to be approaching the high watermark of the £425m paid by ITV and Setanta in 2007.

Director general Tony Hall said the deal had put the FA Cup "back where it belongs" on the BBC, which will have first pick of the best matches in each round.

"What has interested me in my first few months here are the lessons of the Olympics in how you bring all the services around the big event, whether that be Wimbledon or Glastonbury," said Hall.

"When you poll licence fee payers they say they want the big events to be on the BBC. The FA Cup is one of those big national moments. Working closely with the FA I believe we will change the way we view the FA Cup forever."

BT chief executive Gavin Patterson said: "BT Sport made a determined joint bid to retain the FA Cup rights because we believe it is one of the truly great club football competitions."

When ITV chairman Michael Grade engineered a £425m coup with now defunct pay TV broadcaster Setanta to snatch the rights from the BBC and Sky in 2007, it caused fury at the BBC. But ITV later had to admit it had overpaid, while Setanta went bust.

The BBC has only now returned to the table and the emergence of BT Sport as a serious challenger to Sky allowed the Football Association to engineer a more competitive auction this time around.

The difficulties surrounding the broadcast rights for the FA Cup – when Setanta went under ESPN stepped in, only to exit the market itself when it lost its Premier League package – have compounded the issues involved in maintaining its relevancy.

The FA has periodically considered radical changes to the FA Cup format but claimed last season that more subtle moves, including the controversial decision to kick off the final at 5.15pm, had helped reinvigorate it. The teatime kick-off is likely to stay under the new deal.

In a twist of fate, the unveiling of the new TV rights deal was the first official public event for new FA chairman Greg Dyke, a former BBC director general. Although he had little to do with the negotiations, when he was at the BBC he was vocal about the need for it to bid for major sporting events.

The FA Cup rights were split from the England matches for the first as a result of Uefa's decision to sell the rights for competitive qualifying matches centrally.

ITV agreed a £100m deal to cover England's competitive home internationals live until 2018 earlier this year.

"What's interesting from our audience research is that they expect the big events to be on the BBC. But not at any price – which is why the BT element of the deal is important," said Hall.

Gary Lineker, the Match of the Day presenter who is likely to host the BBC's FA Cup coverage, said the BBC's recapture of the rights would be broadly welcomed by licence fee payers.

"It's right for the BBC to try its best, in difficult times when you going up against operators, to bid for what it can," he said.

"The BBC has consistently shown what it can do for sport over a long period of time. The Open, Wimbledon, World Cups, European Championships. We'll do this competition justice."

Lineker also hit back at critics of Match of the Day's style. "It's still hugely popular, hugely watched and our figures continue to rise season on season. That's where your answer lies. Our graphics are state of the art, we're always looking at ways of doing it differently," he said.

"The only criticism we tend to get is that there's not enough analysis – but if we started showing analysis instead of action, we have to get the right balance. We've got good people, great pundits and we're looking at bringing new people in all the time. In terms of pundits, it's a nightmare job – one man's pundit is another man's poison. You either love them or hate them."